There are very few races in which I have the slightest bit of interest, yet I believe I’ve found another I couldn’t care less about: The First Christmas Card Mailed race. I should have known it was coming, really.
As I wandered down to the mailbox yesterday there was a suspiciously wintry chill in the air and the hushed silence that pervaded the driveway meant that the omnipresent leaf blowers were all done for the season. It was, in short, December 1st. As I nosed through the effluvia that the United States Postal Service is forever leaving in the mailbox, I spied what could only be a bit of red and green glitter at the bottom. Glitter from a Christmas card that was winking and smirking at me in the way that only a harbinger of this particular holiday season can.
“Yoo hoo,” whispered the glittery card, “guess what? It’s December and you haven’t even thought about Christmas cards have you? No you haven’t. I, however, came from a family that is organized, has their shit together and probably looks like they belong in a Ralph Lauren catalogue to boot. So there.”
I rolled my eyes which is really the only thing you can do when faced with cheeky, albeit hallucinatory harbingers of this most glittery of holiday seasons. Worse, by the time I got the offending card indoors and isolated it as one would a biohazard, I realized that it had left a trail of glitter behind me that looked as if I was being stalked by Phyllis Diller.
What to do then? Well, even though I realize I’ll never win the First Christmas Cards Mailed race, I really do have to get my holiday game face on. So then, it’s time to 1: beat a few smiles out of the boys, 2: snap a picture of the enforced smiles regardless of what I’m assuming will be their spectacular insincerity, 3: think of a pithy seasonal remark to add to the cards, and 4: actually mail the damn things.
So, I figure if I get all that done by, say, the 23rd or so I’ll be a winner just for finishing. Kind of like the Special Olympics of holiday cheer, if you will. Happy holidays!
